One of the biggest lessons here was the willingness to embrace transparency and the impact of many eyes watching. Not an comfortable place for government officials, but one reason why Earl Devaney deserves extra credit for courage in pushing that into the design principles.

Tracking $840 billion is not an easy job, be it a private enterprise or the government sector, audit and transparency have been an area where from time to time both sectors have struggled, not to mention international organizations that work in development. If feel that not only can other government agencies learn from the success of a successful board, but everyone can again valuable lessons.

As InformationWeek Government readers were busy firming up their fiscal year 2015 budgets, we asked them to rate more than 30 IT initiatives in terms of importance and current leadership focus. No surprise, among more than 30 options, security is No. 1. After that, things get less predictable.